Quit Being Pavlov's Dog!

What exactly do I mean by that?

Pavlov was working on understanding the digestive functions of dogs.  His experiments involved feeding the dog and then collecting the digestive juices. what he discovered was that the dogs would begin to salivate when the scientists who were doing the collection came into the room even if they were not bringing food with them. WHY? Because the dogs had made an association between the food and the scientists. Pavlov called this a "conditioned response'.

 Pavlov decided this was a far more interesting study than collecting digestive juices so he started exploring this conditioned response. In his experiments he would ring a bell when the dogs were fed and sure enough the dogs came to link the sound of the bell with the food and salivate when the bell was rung even when there was no food. Just as they had been conditioned to respond to the presence of the scientists with salivation, so did they become conditioned to respond to the bell in the same way.

Smokers also have many conditioned responses. If  two things get paired together over and over and over, it sets up such a response.  Think of some of the pairings that are common with smoking; a cigarette and coffee, smoking and drinking, a cigarette on a lunch break, a cigarette while talking on the phone, smoking in the car, smoking when stressed... etc.

 How do we break up a conditioned response? Well, what would have happened if instead if ringing a bell, the scientists came in and blasted a trumpet? Would the dog have salivated? NO! because there was no pairing with the trumpet. the trumpet was  a neutral stimuli. So...we break up a conditioned response by making a change in the pairing.

In order to give up smoking it is important to identify when, where and how you are likely to be tempted to smoke and begin to change your routine. For example, if it is always coffee in the morning with a cigarette, can you change your routine to tea and a paper? Or maybe you take that coffee into a different room? Or maybe  avoid coffee for awhile until the response dies down on it's own.

If you always smoke in the car, how about keeping your cigarettes in the trunk, singing along with the radio, or  drinking water instead?

If a cigarette is what you turn to when you are stressed, make a list of other stress releasing activities and practice choosing from the list when stress arises. Could you take some deep breaths? Go for a walk? Talk to a friend? Get exercise? Engage in something creative? Have sex? Consider and employ other options and soon a cigarette will no longer be necessary.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write out your smoking triggers. or better yet, write out what a typical day looks like; when do you smoke? What are you doing at those times?  Is your smoking linked to a location? An activity? A mood? a person? Identify the when, where and how of your smoking and begin to make some changes to your routine to break up that old conditioned response.

Please return here and tell us what YOU are doing to break the routines. I am happy to hear your stories and provide any support or advice that I can!